


'cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends

by bi-tlejuice (bi_tlejuice)



Series: adventures of lydia deetz and the b-man [1]
Category: Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice) - Fandom, Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: BFFs, Happy Ending, Reunions, Threats of Violence, beetlebabes if you even fucking look at this fic i will stomp you to death with my hooves, reunite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:09:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bi_tlejuice/pseuds/bi-tlejuice
Summary: Beetlejuice doesn't miss Lydia, or Charles and Delia, or the Maitlands.(except for the part where he really, really does)
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz
Series: adventures of lydia deetz and the b-man [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690348
Comments: 18
Kudos: 335





	'cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends

**Author's Note:**

> slight tw for lydia getting harassed/ attempted sexual assault (NOT by beetlejuice)
> 
> enjoy!

It's been like, two months since the whole thing at the Deetz household. 

When he came back, Maria wiggled a few fingers and he's back to being a born-dead instead of recently-deceased, and that's that. Nobody in the breathing world can see him any more so he's still bio-exorcising, he doesn't miss his mom and he definitely doesn't miss Lydia.

At all. Like, at _all._

Well- yeah, maybe he thinks about her, and Adam and Barbara and sometimes even Charles and Delia like every single day, but that's not 'cause he misses them. No way. Why would he miss someone who stabbed him in the back like that? In the betrayal way _and_ the literal way (seriously, who does that?) So he's busy not missing them, he's sure they're busy not missing him, and life is exactly how it was before he met the Maitlands. 

Is he really _welcome_ in the Netherworld? Not by a long shot. Beetlejuice was always the fuck-up Juno had to put up with, and now he's the fuck-up that killed the Director of the Netherworlds Customs and Processing. It's not like she's not coming back, because when you get to a certain level of power in this place, you can pretty much do whatever you want. But she's not back yet, and it could be another few months, so they've had to scrabble for a replacement. Nobody likes Beetlejuice very much at all, is the vibe he's been feeling.

So when he's sat on the roof a newly-dead's house waiting to make the real estate agent shit her pants, he's definitely intrigued and maybe slightly tempted when he hears Lydia's voice rattling around in his chest. _Beetlejuice_ , so quiet it makes his head hurt.

The name thing works like _this_. Saying it doesn't always summon him unless it's said three times (though, why she'd want everyone to see him again is beyond anything he can reason.) Saying it once _can_ summon him on two conditions - one, it has to be said with the _intent_ of summoning him, and two, he has to choose to go. It acts as a gateway, kinda- saying it with intent opens the door there, but it's up to him as to whether he's walking through it. However, when someone says his name three times with the intent of summoning him, he's there whether he likes it or not.

"I'm not going," he announces to the ghost dog curled up in the corner. "Too much shit to do." The piece of paper he brought with him titled _Juno - CONFIDENTIAL_ that he can't even read (it just looks like a bunch of nothing, but he knows by now that the word 'confidential' is often very juicy gossip) is definitely more important than whatever Lydia wants, and almost definitely isn't going to _stab him_ like she did. 

_"Beetlejuice_ ," again, this time louder and in a voice that catches him off guard. Lydia, in his experience, can be sulky and stroppy like the next angsty goth teen girl, but he's never heard her scared like this.

"Whatever," he grumbles, rolling his eyes at the poison moss sprouting in the cracks in the ceiling. "She's probably faking. I swear, if she says it again, I'll-"

 _"Beetlejuice!"_ and suddenly he's in some backwash alley facing an interesting-smelling dumpster. 

"I swear to fuck, kid, if this is about some stupid argument with your daddy, I-"

"Who's this fucking fag?" says a voice he's never heard before- a young guy, maybe 20-something, gruff and pissed off. Something hard and heavy smacks into his head, enough to make him stumble forward a few steps, and the voice says "beat it, old guy. Leave us to it." After his head stops spinning, he turns to leave the alley, 'cause if Lydia summoned him to throw _rocks_ at him he's not hanging around. 

Lydia's pinned up against the wall with a hand gripped tightly over her mouth and a switchblade pointed at her face. The guy who threw the rock is still watching him with caution, grip on the knife relentless but legs poised like he's ready to run or charge depending on what Beetlejuice does. The other guy has his back to him and-

By the time Beetlejuice realises they're trying to pull open Lydia's belt, he loses control completely. Before either of them move a muscle, the second guy is thrown against the dumpster with a satisfying crack, lying unmoving and whimpering softly. The knife guy stands his ground, looking at him as if to say _I'll stab her if you try anything._

 _"Back away_ ," he growls, the pavement cracking with every slow step he takes closer. "Back away or I _swear_ I'll kill you."

The guy takes a look at his friend on the ground, stumbles backwards a few steps and runs as fast as his feet will take him out of the alley. Lydia drops to her knees as soon as he lets go but she doesn't pass out, just steadies herself with her hands before furiously swiping the tears off of her face. "Sorry," she grits out, voice hoarse and sounding slightly winded. "Thought I could handle them."

Anger is still bubbling in his stomach and burning in his eyes but he feels it subside slightly, because she looks so small against the wall and maybe, just _maybe_ he really did miss her. Behind him, the guy groans and tries to stand up. While Lydia's still looking at the floor and catching her breath, he flips him into the dumpster and grins as a padlock materialises after the lid slams shut. "So, uh," he says, clearing his throat. "Need a ride home?"

Barbara's changing the sheets on Lydia's bed when they appear in her bedroom, humming softly to whatever shitty jazz music Delia's playing downstairs. She doesn't jump when their feet drop onto the floor (yeah, maybe he never bothered perfecting his landings,) but her eyes do narrow -when she turns to look at him. "What did you _do?_ " she near-hisses, pulling Lydia away by the arm and positioning herself in front of her. "I swear, I might be little but that doesn't mean I won't _chase you out_ -"

"Woah- _woah. Cool_ it, B-town. I was just playing taxi driver, don't get your panties all in a twist. I'll be going now." 

"Hey, uh-" Lydia starts saying, still staring uncomfortably at the floorboards, but Beetljuice snaps his fingers and he's gone. 

-

Born-deads don't actually need any sleep, but it's always been something Beetlejuice has indulged in because that shit is _awesome._ Nothing beats a lie in, and sleeping with someone else in the bed is pretty neat too. Warmer, and if he had to admit it he'd say it's nice to feel wanted when someone curls up beside him. Whatever. The point is that no, Beetlejuice doesn't need sleep, but he still likes to sleep most nights. Tonight, however, he's smoked a pipe of filthiest Netherworld weed down here and is swaddled in pillows on his own bed yet he still can't sleep.

He can't stop thinking about the look on Lydia's face when he was summoned to her, or the boiling fury he'd felt completely encompass him when he saw her. About how worried he was, and how relieved he was that she'd summoned him, even though he'd _swore_ he was gonna stay super mad when he saw her. About how gross he'd felt when Barbara assumed it was _him_ that hurt her. 

"Shit," he sighs, swinging his legs off the mattress and standing up. Well, if he can't sleep, he may as well finish what he started earlier.

The first guy is sleeping when he finally finds the right window (which, by the way, only takes him _four fucking hours,_ ) which arguably makes it even more fun, because he doesn't wake up until Beetlejuice is kneeling on his chest, trapping his arms and grabbing his pajama shirt by the neck. When his eyes focus he yells out, but he barely gets through his breath in before Beetlejuice snaps his fingers and his voice cuts off completely. 

"Don't waste your breath, I'll kill ya before anyone hears," he says, pulling his knife out of whatever otherly plane it exists in when he's not holding it and tracing it along the boy's jaw. Does this dude deserve to die? _Completely,_ and maybe if Beetlejuice hadn't grown up a little recently he'd leave him bleeding out on his Big Bang Theory comforter, but like. In the window adjacent to this one he'd seen a younger sibling, and he's not gonna start tearing whole families apart just 'cause one of them sucks. So he settles for something a little more hypothetical.

"If you ever," he starts, feeling his teeth sharpen as he stares down at the quivering, pathetic asshole. "If you _ever_ touch Lydia like that again, if you ever touch _anyone_ like that again, I won't just kill you. I'll _slowly_ tear every limb from your body, gouge your eyes from your head and let you bleed out. Trust me, you'll be in excruciating pain for hours before you _finally_ die." The guy is crying now, and it kind of smells like he's pissed himself, so Beetlejuice stands up and brushes his lap. "I'll be watching," he promises - and he _will_ be, it's not like he's got anything else to do - before snapping his fingers and reappearing outside the house. 

"Boy, I forgot how _fun_ this was," he says to the spider crawling around the fencepost, grinning up at the sky. "Now, rapist number two- where'd ya get off to?"

By the time he's finished it's the morning anyway, and he's feeling pretty satisfied about his work. However, he's snapping his fingers without much effort, thinking about going somewhere comfortable (and totally intending to end up in a bed somewhere) and surprisingly, he ends up on the Deetz's roof. Charles is smoking a cigar out the window, chatting happily to someone on the phone about some business shit, and Beetlejuice is undeniably and crushingly lonely. There was no point in which Charles seemed to genuinely like him, but being chastised and scolded was better than nothing at all. Now he's back to being, y'know. Invisible.

"Beetlejuice?" he hears, and for a moment he thinks he's being summoned again and curses to himself, but then a hand touches his shoulder and nearly scares him off the roof. Adam's standing behind him in pajamas, confusion knitted through his eyebrows but there's something else, some kind of emotion he doesn't know how to interpret because nobody's looked at him like _that_ before. "Lydia, uh. She told us about what happened. We wanted to- to thank you."

Beetlejuice shrugs, hopes it's far too dark for them to see what's presumably purple threading through his hair. The lonely colour - not that Adam will know that anyway. "Look, she summoned me. Hardly had a choice in the matter- once I was already there, I could hardly walk away," he reasons. Adam gives him some kind of look. "C'mon, how much of a douchebag d'you take me for? I was doin' what any normal guy would do."

"So any normal guy would go and find these guys later and threaten their lives until they, uh- they wet themselves?" he counters, stepping closer as if he's noticed Beetlejuice slowly inching back. "I think you- _we_ , should, uh- why don't'cha come inside? We could have tea, or-"

By the time Adam realises he's drawing a door at his feet, he's already fallen into the Netherworld. No, he's not crying, because badass born-dead demons like Beetlejuice do _not_ cry, but he's not sure how to cope with this wrenching pain in his chest. He's been back on his bullshit for two months now and felt nothing, been pissing around with breathers for millenium and not once has he ever felt so _human._

This is fucking ridiculous- he's Beetlejuice, ghost zombie Jesus, the ghost with the most who doesn't need anyone at all, who doesn't feel sad or scared or alone because he doesn't care about anything. Except he's sat here in his mom's office so, so alone that it hurts his head. He hasn't felt like this since he was like, a _teenager_ , desperately shouting at his mom's locked bedroom door just wanting _someone_ to care-

"Woah," he says as his chest tightens and the walls start moving menacingly, threatening to crush him with every breath out that he takes. " _Woah_ , okay," he manages, gripping the edge of the desk until his knuckles turn white. "Fuck." Somewhere in the back of his mind he registers wanting an open space and suddenly he's at the edge of everything.

The beaches in Hell aren't really beaches, they're just when everything ends. There's sand, kind of, but it's black and hot and slices the skin of anything breathing the second they touch it. Water laps at the edge, black and steaming and unpleasant for even him to touch. But it's a stretch of land that goes on as far as he can see and there's not a being in site, and now he can kind of breathe a little more. The sand burns his knees but the warmth is comforting and the pain is grounding, and within a couple of minutes he's got his breath back. 

"Motherfucker," he sighs, but the waves don't respond. 

"Beetlejuice," Lydia says, waking him up with a jump where he's presumably fallen asleep on the sand. It's singed his trousers and burned a nasty smelling hole in his jacket, which he spends a minute waving about in the air to put the embers out. " _Beetlejuice_ ," she repeats in a voice that says _don't make me say it again,_ so he rolls his eyes even though she can't see and wills the doorway to appear. 

She's sat on the floor of her bedroom with a mixed bowl of colourful chewy-looking stuff, glaring at the cushion positioned on the floor opposite her as if he's supposed to sit down on it. There's an alarm going off warning him to leave but he pushes it down, ignores it and slumps onto the cushion. "What're those?" he asks, not making eye contact and pointing at the bowl.

"Candy. You like human food, figured you'd like them. Why're you burning."

"Hot sand," he says, but it's around a mouthful of chewy cola bottles so it comes out more like "ohf fhan." She sizes him up, smirking a little at- take your pick, he's not sure. The eagerness with which he's devouring the candy, or the burned jacket, or the likely slightly burned hair he's sporting. "What you wanting then, kid? Or we just throwing the name around for fun now?"

Lydia narrows her eyes as if he's just said something unfair, but he determinedly ignores her and continues consuming the candy (he's on to these like, chewy blue balls covered in sugary powder, and he's definitely put too many in his mouth.) " _No_. I wanted to say some stuff." Beetlejuice carries on chewing. "First, I wanted to say thanks for what you did. I know you think it's what anyone would do, but it's not. Besides, only you can make that guy start crying after he bumped in to me after school, and that was pretty awesome." Beetlejuice is still chewing. "I wanted to say, uh. I dunno. I thought you were gonna come back after you left."

Finally he swallows, but he nearly chokes on the impact of what she's just said. Seeing his reaction, she crosses her arms and glares at the half-empty bowl. "Or whatever. It's dumb. You're probably like, doing your _bio_ -exorcism thing."

"Okay, okay, _okay,_ " he starts, cracking his knuckles against the side of his head. "For starters, there was _no_ reason to say 'bio-exorcism' in the voice you just used- it's a _real_ and very _serious_ job, alright? Secondly, what the hell are you on about ' _thought you'd come back_ '? Kid, you fucking _killed_ me. You wanna know how difficult it was to explain to customs that I was a born-dead who'd just newly _died_?"

" _You_ tried to double-cross me in to marrying you _and_ tried to kill my whole family when it didn't work!" she fires back, lip stuck out in a terrifying pout. Teenage girls, man. They'll kill you.

"Maybe," he says, even though it's a _definitely_ , "but I kinda feel I made up for it by saving your ass by killing my own mom. You know how mad she's gonna be when she comes back? Bye-bye Beetlejuice."

"Yeah, and I _hugged_ you before you left. Do I look like the hugging type to you? Don't chat shit with me, Beej," she threatens, and _woah_ , the Lydia he met two months ago didn't _swear_. "I know you're not _that_ mad. So why'd you stay away?"

"Well- why didn't you talk to _me_?" he snaps back before even thinking about it. "I've been alone for the past two months _waiting_ to hear from any of you," and oh, it's all coming out now, "and there was nothing, 'cause you guys are doing perfectly fine without me, and if you wanted to hang out you would've said something so you clearly don't, 'cause you're happy without me and it doesn't matter how much I missed you because you guys get to be happy and I'm _still alone_."

And then it's out there, the words floating around in the room waiting for Lydia to absorb them and no matter how hard he tries he can't take them back. "That was so cringe," he says, grinning like he hasn't just poured his heart out to some fifteen year-old emo. "I'll be going now." 

" _Sit_ down," she instructs as he goes to stand up, and now she's actually looking at him and it's so much worse. Man, he thought _having_ all these feelings was bad enough. Now he's having to not only address them but have someone else acknowledge them. It's fucking gross. "I thought you hated me. I hoped you didn't, but it got longer and longer and you didn't come back." When he doesn't grace this with a response because he has no idea _how_ , she clears her throat and squeezes her eyes shut. "I was lonely too. Not- not 'cause I'm alone, I know I'm not now. But I missed you."

It's only once she's said it does he realise it's what he's been wanting to hear all along. "Are you crying, kid?" is all he can manage to respond with, but he's sure his answer comes through with the grin he can't wipe off his face.

" _No_ , but you totally are, you big dumb idiot," she chokes out, and she's totally crying, but he can't risk calling her out because he's also totally crying, and then she's launching across the floor and tackling him into a hug. The hug lasts for a minute or so, strategically allowing both of them to compose themselves before separating and not making eye contact. "Anyway. That was super gross. Don't tell anyone."

"Obviously," he scoffs, burning away the tissue he'd used to wipe his eyes. "So, uh. What d'you guys do round here now you don't all wanna kill each other?"

"I go to school. It's shit. Adam and Barb cook dinner lots, 'cause they're bored and they've worked out how to possess inanimate objects, like the oven."

Beetlejuice grins, nodding in way that implies he's familiar with cooking despite never having prepared a single meal in his life. Sure, he _likes_ eating, but liking something and being willing to put effort into it are different things. It's much less effort to just kill someone and eat the dinner they'd just finished cooking, or just to eat them if that's the only option. He only did that during his emo phase, though. "Adam and Barb still looking for a third?"

"You are disgusting. At no point were they ever looking for a _third_ person."

"Trust me, kid- they might not've announced it, but an _experienced_ guy like myself can tell when people are looking for stuff like that."

"I hate you and I wish you'd stopped speaking two minutes ago."

**Author's Note:**

> please leave kudos or comments if you liked it!


End file.
